The Color of Clutter
Matt Flynn
Lynne Ramsay’s Ratcatcher takes place in the Glasgow Scotland in 1973. The location is a
community housing project that is old, crowded and dirty. The housing is, in the American, the
projects. The film is a realistic depiction of these people and in particular a young boy
named James (played by William Eadie). He is the center of the movie and most of the action
revolves around him, his family and his friends, both male and female. The film is styled along
the social realism aesthetic. This style represents human life in a stark un-glamorous manner.
One aspect of this style is the location’s color. The muted color of Ratcatcher reflects the dour
mood and lives of the film’s characters. The visual and emotional tone of the movie is contrasted
when James takes a bus trip to a new housing development. He moves from the dank dirty streets
of the Glasgow streets to the clean wide open space of a rural housing development. The change
in color during James’s bus ride to their new housing conveys a temporary change in space and
mood that foreshadows the communities moving to a better place.
The bus ride is a smooth transition from the dirty housing project to the clean and spacious
country. The mise en scene changes during the trip. The Glasgow site is stone, gray and very
dirty. The bus itself is driven by a well- dressed clean cut driver. The atmosphere of the top of
the bus is sparse and devoid of any other human beings. The view is pleasant. James, for this first
time in the movie, can look down at the streets from which he originated. He can look down as
the piles of garbage, the dirty sidewalks and building. He can look down at this scene and
simultaneously move away. This change in scenery represents a change in mind set for James
himself and perhaps his surrounding community.
The bus arrives at its terminus. James doesn’t realize that he’s at the end of the line. The bus
driver tells him to leave; the ride is over. He is forced to leave the bus and start walking. He
walks across a field that is spatially and visually removed from Glasgow. It is flat, light and has
no buildings. He walks through the grass to the site of a housing project under development. The
housing construction is disorderly, but in a productive way. The construction site is portrayed as
organic and disordered. However, it is not like the disorder of his current neighborhood. The
houses are clean. Their yards are cluttered with lumber, pipes and other pieces of construction
material. The yards scene creates a space that represents the creation of a fresh, new community.
The fresh clean clutter exists both externally and internally. The interior spaces are also under
construction and somewhat messy. They are shown as bare walls and floors. The bathroom
interior is raw. There is nothing on the floor and the walls are baron. The fixtures, the toilet and
bath tub are new and have never been used. They are light, white, fresh and clean. He plays in
the tub and tries to turn on the water. He is clearly ready to move in. He then moves on to
explore the rest of the house.
James walks from the upstairs interior to the house’s kitchen which is also under construction.
As he walks into the kitchen, the camera frames a window. It is an empty window that consists
of only a sill and no glass. Through it, he can see the fields that surround the house. The view is
of a field of brown grass about one foot in height. The view of the field is centered in the middle
of the screen. This shot provides and nice contrast between an interior under construction and a
flat, bucolic scene. James sits in the window sill and look outward from the kitchen’s interior.
At this moment, all the visual elements of the scene are held together. There is a shot from the
interior of the kitchen to the grassy field in the exterior. The window’s frame is a frame within a
frame. The audience sees the scene framed twice. The kitchen and the field are framed by the
camera and the field is framed a 2nd time by the window sill. It’s as though there are 2
perceptions of the field. James sits on the right side of the window sill with his feet dangling over
the edge looking out. When all these elements are brought together, the film conveys James’s
viewpoints and feelings. He sits in a fresh interior looking at a fresh exterior. The feeling of a
mild levity almost drips of the screen.
James then jumps off the window sill into the exterior of the house. He runs to the field and then
runs through the field. It is a playful and light moment in a generally a dark and somber movie.
He runs jumps, flips and experiences a child like playfulness with no inhibition. The lightly
colored visual space of the flat field portrays a character having a good time with little worry
about. Through these scenes, the audience sees a momentary and mild transformation in his
character. He goes from a grim low class Glasgow public housing occupant to a normal human
being having a good time.
Taken literally, the bus trip represents little; it is a short jaunt to the country to explore a new
house. Some broader cinematic themes come to mind. There are a multitude of contrasted
elements displayed during these scenes. Color, clutter and framing provide opposites that lead to
a personal transitional moment in the movie. Arguably, there are other possibilities. James, his
family and neighbors are moving from a dirty place to a clean place with the help of a
community, government subsidized housing and a government subsidized bus driver. There is
a specter of paternalism and dependence. This community is largely dependent on the
government for a place to live. Going even further, the trip may represent James’s death. The bus
ride and driver acts as vehicular purgatory that ends when the bus driver tells him the trip is over;
it is time to get off the bus. The movie ends ambiguously, so these non-literal interpretations
also get mired in ambiguity. Isn’t that the point?
Anyway, that is enough of that. James seems to be mildly uplifted by his short trip. He gets to
leave his day to day activities and companions and experience a small piece of another world.
The bus ride, the building site are a short but enjoyable jaunt through an idyllic pastoral setting.
The mood of the film changes through these scenes, and the mood of James changes as well.
Contrasting color expresses a change in mood of the lead character. The change in scenery that
accompanies the color change reinforces this narrative for this character and for the audience.
Overall, the trip to the country is a refreshing intrusion in what is an otherwise dour, sour and
depressing taste of the reality of living in a Glasgow housing project in the mid 1970’s.
Movie link
The whole movie was on Youtube, but not it's gone
The scenes discussed are from 1:38 to 1:44
Here's clip of the kitchen scene
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RG5amE6TRwc
Ratcatcher: The color of drowning
The Color of Clutter
The color of emotion
The color of semi sweat and sour
Displaying Hope through motion and color change
Degenerative cluster vs. constructive clutter…
Who is going to manage the clutter/good vs. bad chaos…..
Internal elements:
a-Color change between scenes
b-Clutter changes between scenes
c-Kitchen Framing between scenes
NOTES and PIECES
For this film please screen one of the following: Ratcatcher (1999) directed by Lynne Ramsay or
Umberto D (1952) directed by Vittorio DeSica. In this discussion you will be required to analyze both
both acting and sound.
Ratcatcher and Umberto D both come out of a realist filmmaking tradition. Umberto D is a classic Italian
Neorealist film. Italian Neorealism began in the aftermath of WWII, it focused on conditions of the poor
and working class. Neorealist films use the war-torn city as their set, stories are simple and minimal,
focusing on the challenges of everyday life. Ratcatcher comes out of a social realist filmmaking tradition,
an important historically to cinema in the U.K. Like Italian Neo-realism, social realist films are often set
in on location, focus on the everyday problems of the poor and working class.
Ratcatcher and Umberto D share the core elements of realist filmmaking tradition. Their protagonists are
to a degree opposites, an elderly retired government worker who can no longer live on his meager
pension, and a young boy struggling to grow up in the slums of Glasgow, Scotland during a sanitation
workers strike in 1973. As is true with many realist films, both of the lead roles are played by non-actors.
(Carlo Battisti - Umberto D and William Eadie - James). Both films are loosely plotted and have openendings.
I am working on better uploads of both films but for now you can check out these links on You Tube:
Umberto D
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnvj0horjGc
Ratcatcher
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l42jveMRpnY
1.) In preparation/practice for your final exam essay please formulate a thesis statement around the film
you watched for this week and one of the formal film topics:
cinematography, mise en scene,
The staging, is Urban, concrete dirty, gray, cold, 1970’s Glasgow Scotland,
Interiors vs. exteriors
Da Shu’ Up;
A visual metaphor for dark to light….
Which represents?
How is visual language being used here? How does staging and composition tell a story.
Assume the story premise and use visual language to prove the story…
3 scenes a transition from rotten film of government /labor induced filth, moving away from his family
While at the same time being with his family…..
Scene A
Moving from the filthy Glasgow council housing streets to the clean suburbs
Moving on a clean bus looking at the dirty streets
He walks to the top of passes a circular mirror while climbing a circular stairway
The top of a clean bus
A 2 story bus
A clean 2 story bus moving from city to suburban setting with nice music
The flat, wheat color grass in visible from the top of the bus
He is alone in the clean bus, describe and infer from the setting
The bus end, the bus drive tell him it the end of the road…..,
What to infer from this scene…..
Within these scene. A child acting as a child and maybe becoming less a child and move of an adult.
Scene B
He walks out of the bus
Balmore Road is the sign on the bus…
The housing project is under construction
It littered with construction debris, yet it’s clean, as only a new house can be.
There are pipe to play with and to play and around. There are some board to crawl on and around
MY recollection is thus; construction sites often smell good, they often smell like fresh wood, when the
frames have first been put up and they have yet to be covered with drywall and insulation.
The new housing is clean, light and bright. The toilet appliance are new, so new covered with plastic,
Yes he pees in the toilet that’s not hooked up.
What to infer from this scene…..
Moving to a new space, metaphor for growing up, growing away form is family, in a very small
way. He get’s a new clean tube a new clean soul
SCENE C
He walks down a shot stairwell down a stairwell, to a new kitchen, with a
Rectangular window wit now glass, he jump on the window sill He jumps through and runs outside
To a flat landscape with short brown grass, must be filmed in summer.
The scene is flesh clean an bright.,
He then kicks the can down the road.
What to infer from this scene…..
He’s still p laying around like a kid, but he’s moved through form cleanly designed space and now he
returned slowly walking back to his row house in Glasgow
The end
James is played by ……
Scenes:
Mouse scene: 11:30
Bus ride: Goes to the new houses, 38:30
Inside his own house
Playing in the tub with his female friend.
2nd trip to new house(it’s now close) 120:50
38:30 off bus to field
41:00 field framed by kitchen scene,
51:00 Mouse to the moon
57:30 bathtube Ophelia scene + canal almost drowning scene.
Sound, editing.
Make sure that your thesis has depth. It cannot be something like "The use of diegetic sound in Umberto
D makes this film a classic".
Type of actors
2.) There are four key types of actors mentioned on page 272 of your text:
a.) Personality actors : actors who take their personae from role to role
b.) actors who deliberately play against our expectations of their personae.
c.) Chameleon actors: actors who seem to be different in every role.
d.) actors (often non-professionals) or people who have achieved success in another field who are cast to
bring verisimilitude to a part.
Evaluation of acting ability and style….
As we already discussed, the lead actor in your film is a non-professional (Carlo Battisti - Umberto D and
William Eadie - James). Evaluate their performance using the criteria listed on page 310 of your text (be
sure to review this list before writing). They include:
Actor and acting criteria in Ratchater
-appropriateness
-Inherent thoughtfulness or emotionality
Credible inner life and inner life portrayed?
-Expressive coherence
Aesthetic consistency- character is maintained throughout the time of the story in a variety of
setting and situations. How is this different than expressive coherence??
Emotional stasis=social stasis?
Are the qualities above maintained throughout the film?
-Wholeness and unity
The lead actor is a young boy, William Eadie. The character he is playing, James, is also a young
Scottish boy. So he is definitely an appropriate choice for this role. A 25 year old man or a 60 year
old woman playing this part would have been completely inappropriate and even ridiculous.
In many scenes James looks sour and somewhat confused about his community and family situation. This
actor projects these qualities to the camera and thus to the audience. He is a young boy living his life in
the council houses of Glasgow in 1973 and his persona is believable. Given the trauma that James has to
endure he comes across as unemotional and stoic. He fights back against the many injustices that he has
to endure. But, he’s never becomes overtly or strongly emotional about his situation. There are many
times where he could have broken down and cried.
For example, when the kid he’s playing with drowns, when he sees how upset his mother becomes and
when he is playing with the neighborhood floozy in the bathtub. These were moments of emotional
clarity. This actor and thus his character display a limited emotional range. He’s stays blank faced
throughout much of the film. A more emotional responsive character would probably have a broader
range of response. The blankness makes James the focal point of the story. Through his stoicism, a sense
of objectively about the cityscape portrayed in the movie is being built. His emotion response is
somewhat un-realistic in an overtly realistically styled film.
These stoic qualities are maintained throughout the film. There is not much change in the boy’s character
as the film progresses. This consistency could represent the stasis of the community as a whole. He
becomes the embodiment of sourness and stasis in this low rent district part of the city. There are times
when he smiles and seems in tune with his family, but in most of the scenes he is moping around his
neighborhood.
There are a series of scenes that contrast this communities present and what may be in the future.
The greatest contrast in backdrop is between the old row houses and a housing development being
constructed. James, his family and the rest of the community are slated to move to the new housing.
His persona remains constant between these two locations. His body language, demonstrated by
the way he walks, shows only a subtle shift between these dramatically different locales. Their
current local is old, constructed of dirty bricks, filled with trash bags and has many dead rats
scattered about. The new housing project is a bus ride away from this decrepit street scene. It is
new, clean bright and spacious. The inner space and outer spaces are clean, brightly lit and
spacious. In the transition between the dirty old neighborhood and the fresh housing development,
James’ persona is even, steady and believable.
24 min
James runs away when he sees the mother of the boy who drowned. He seems someone guilty at
this time. He walks away has to be called back by his mother. He seems somewhat aware that and
may have regrets that he was involved with the drowning death of?? Quinn.
Mouse scene 28:00
My recollections from this film.
The kid drowning in the opening scene
James’ trip on the bus to what he expects to be his new home, new hope,
Sex in the tube with his neighbor
His drunk father